Caesar is dead. Monkeys have evolved. Men have regressed into the wild (or almost). Nature has taken over. We are “many generations” away from the events of the previous chapter, and the world has now changed profoundly. So deeply that Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is something completely different compared to the three films that preceded it: the connections with the trilogy reboot of the saga born in the Sixties are still there, but the very long period of time between the last episode of the franchise and the one released in cinemas on May 8 makes them only distant memories, echoes of a past that few people know Truly.
As, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is a reboot – maybe the start of a second trilogy rebootwho knows – compared to the fixed points made with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Apes Revolution And The War. Something completely new but also intimately connected to the past, right from the opening scene (which we won’t give any spoilers about, given that it is one of the most touching moments of the film). And precisely on this dialectic between past and present, as well as on upheaval of everything we thought we knew of the world of sentient apes, the film’s charm is built.
The kingdom
Having set aside the protagonists of the last chapters of the series, The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes revolves around Noaa young chimpanzee who lives in the forest with his family and his tribe, specialized in training eagles.
After learning falconry, however, Noa’s clan remained at an all in all primordial stage: sure, the monkeys live in communities, know how to ride and have developed a rather basic language, but they do not use firearms and have not created a complex society. There Noa’s tribe is overturned by the arrival of a group of conquerors, led by Proximus, a bonobo monarch who took up the legacy – or rather, the myth – of Caesar and who manipulated it, distorting it to its deepest meaning, to build a real Kingdom of apes, based on tyranny and on the prevalence of the strongest. While Noa’s tribe is put in chains, the protagonist manages to escape: his adventures between the hinterland and the west coast of the United States lead him to meet Raka, an intellectual and erudite orangutan, the last representative of a “cult” always linked to Caesar, who – unlike Proximus – carried forward his ideals in their purest form. On the other hand, it is no coincidence that one of the most iconic phrases of the chimpanzee played by Andy Serkis, “Monkeys strong together”both the mantra of both Proximus and Raka, and then also of Noa and his supporting characters: the mystification of History and the exploitation of the powerful messages of the past is a tendency common to humans and primates.
Speaking of humans: the basis of the kidnapping of Noa’s tribe is the accusation of having given refuge to a human on the run, who the wildlings of Proximus are hunting throughout the forest. The girl is soon named Nova from Raka, recalling the character of the same name who appeared in The War. The viewer is naturally led to wonder why Proximus is looking for a caveman who is worthless and reduced – like all other human beings – to mutism by the same virus that made monkeys sentient. Actually, the girl hides a huge secretwhich will certainly have repercussions for the future of the entire franchise: when we said that The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes sets the stage for a new trilogy, we weren’t kidding.
Trying to avoid spoilers, know that the film directed by Wes Ball operates a intelligent reversal of conditions on the Planet of the Apeswhich in turn represented a reversal of reality: the what if? around which the saga revolves is that of the evolution of apes and the involution of humans, but now this cornerstone is apparently crumbling, bringing humans back to the center of the narrative of what is much, much more than just a simple monkey war. The theme of the memory of the past returns here even more strongly: Noa, Proximus and their companions know that there was a past, before Caesar, in which humans dominated unchallenged and apes were locked in cages. No one wants this to happen again, but not everyone agrees on how to avoid it.
The planet
The plot of The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, as you will have understood, is full of events, sincerely exciting and less obvious than expected. But it is there construction of a mature post-apocalyptic sci-fi world to convince: the Planet of the Apes series has never provided a particularly complex and intriguing worldbuilding to spectators, focusing, especially with the most recent films, on the action aspects and leaving out the narrative (and lore) sector of the franchise.
Thanks to a decidedly wise choice – that of the time leap of about 300 years forward – The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes can instead do so with courage what their predecessors only timidly mentioned: presenting a new world, completely different from the Earth we all know but still intimately connected to “our” present, focusing for a long time on the rules, laws and customs that govern it, as well as on evolutionary lines of the populations – humans and animals – that inhabit it. Together with the reversal of the role of humans in the narrative that we talked about above, the strong concentration on the worldbuilding of the film pays off the Planet even more intriguing than the Kingdom, whose foundation echoes a truly original question: what would happen if the mythical ideal of the first sentient ape were glorified and misrepresented at the same time? What emerges is the post-apocalyptic delirium of a primate with the Crownwhich draws liberally from many different imaginaries, both historical (from Roman classicism to the Middle Ages) and cinematographic and pop culture in general: alongside the completely original features, in fact, in the potentate of Proximus and in the Planet explored by Noa we can see not only the legacy of films such as those of the saga of Mad Maxbut also of the video game franchise of Horizon: Zero Dawn And Forbidden West.
All these elements – which, let it be clear, are only hinted at and almost never become predominant – provide the viewer with the impression of be immersed in a possible and realistic future (albeit far away), greatly facilitating immersion in the film and empathy with its simian protagonists. What the lore and plot don’t do, then, is completed by the visual impact of the Kingdom of the Planet of the Apeswhich turns out as visually polished as The Warif not even more: the transition from Matt Reeves’ direction to Wes Ball’s direction did not have negative implications, on the contrary.
There are stylistic differences, but, as per tradition for American blockbusters, they are not too noticeable: the visual quality remains high, despite a greater predilection for wide shots, also due to theabsence of attractive human actors like Andy Serkis and Woody Harrelson, who in the story of The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes they still wouldn’t have found the space they deserved. If anything, the film confirms the upward trajectory of Wes Ball, whose direction is one of the reasons that made critics prefer the franchise Of Maze Runner to that of Hunger Games. Together with the director, much of the technical cast also changed between one episode and another of the saga, but here too the change seems to have happened for the betterespecially with regards to photography: the management of lights, in particular, impressed us in a positive way, even though it was obtained with a heavy use of computer graphics.
The monkeys
Speaking of CGI: also the realization of the monkeys and their movements it is excellent, as it already was in the past. The progress in special effects in recent times (remember that since The War seven years have passed!) you can feel it: although we cannot yet speak of total photographic realism, the monkeys protagonists of the film interact with each other and with the environment that surrounds them with surprising naturalness.
Orangutans on horseback and chimpanzees training eagles, fighting scenes among the trees, on the banks of a pond or under water: The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes doesn’t back down from anything and almost seems to revel in his own technical virtuosity. We would perhaps have preferred a more recognizable design for Noa and his supporting characters, all quite similar to each other: the idea was to make the protagonist look like Caesar as much as possible and – potentially – make it grow and change over the course of the film and future productions, but ultimately the aesthetic choices adopted for Proximus and his minions remain the most iconic. The charisma that Noa and the other “good guys” in the film do not possess in terms of design and costumes, however, they have it from a characterization standpointquite profound and – even more importantly – extremely consistent with the general tone of the narrative and the world in which the film is set.
That said, we must underline that The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes isn’t perfect. The second half of the film is very different – too much, perhaps – from the first, both in terms of pace and the general tone of the story told: the changes of setting become much less frequent and the action sequences take on upper hand. Despite their good workmanship, it is still a choice that perhaps could have been revised, also because the film lasts almost two and a half hours.
We’re certainly not saying that the film should have lasted less (on the contrary: it’s good that we decided to take time to delve deeper into the “new” Planet of the Apes), but a slightly more constant pace would have made the experience more enjoyable. In addition, it is quite clear that the second half was made more hastily compared to the first: some moments, which perhaps in the producers’ view were supposed to be the most “epic” and impactful of the production, are actually simple clichés, both in terms of staging and in terms of content. In short, the sequences which, in theory, should have been richer in pathos, they end up appearing cloying and already seen. A small slip, which however certainly does not compromise a work of great quality.
